• by September 5, 2000

By Masha Geller

Although traditional companies are paying more attention to online advertising, dot-com advertisers outnumber traditional advertisers online two to one, according to an AdRelevance report presented at the recent Camp Interactive marketing summit in Lake Tahoe, California.

Dot-com advertisers account for 68% of companies and 77% of ad impressions among the Top 200 Online Advertisers, according to AdRelevance.

Charlie Buchwalter, AdRelevance’s VP of Media Research, said “When compared to traditional advertisers, the average dot com appears to be spending more aggressively, typically even outspending traditional advertisers.”

The percentage of dot-com advertisers in the Top 200 rankings increased from 54% in July 1999 to 68% in June 2000, and AdRelevance found that dot-coms are committing a greater percentage of online ad impressions: 108 dot-coms committed 64% of the Top 200's ad impressions in July 1999; while, in June 2000, 138 dot-coms committed 75% of the impressions.

While dot-com advertisers outnumber traditional advertisers when looking at all industries combined, the story is not quite the same when the trend is examined across individual industries. Web media, retail and business-to-business industries are dominated by dot com advertisers, with 85%, 74% and 61% of the Top 200 online advertisers being dot coms, respectively. Traditional advertisers, however, populate travel (76%), software (84%), hardware and electronics (97%) and consumer goods (97%) industries.

While dot com advertisers might not account for the majority of companies advertising online in the top rankings by industry, the few companies that are in the Top 200 dominate ad spending in some instances. For example, although only 32 of the Top 200 software advertisers are dot-coms, they account for 86% of all impressions within the industry. Similarly, 48 of the Top 200 travel companies are dot-coms and account for 80% of all travel advertising impressions placed by the Top 200 travel advertisers.

“Despite the overall dominance of dot-com advertisers, traditional advertisers have managed to stake a claim in some industries,” Buchwalter said, adding, “There's no doubt in my mind that as traditional businesses become more comfortable with online advertising, they will begin to spend more of their budgets on the Internet - in fact that's probably the next wave we'll see hit the online ad industry. But, until that day comes, dot-coms are in the driver's seat.”

The AdRelevance announcement comes of the heels of Lehman Brothers Holly Becker’s report last week where she said there is no sign traditional advertisers are embracing online advertising. Ms. Becker added that Lehman considered it "highly unlikely" that traditional advertisers "will pick up the slack of the dot-com fall-off."